SLEEP ALL NIGHT

There are a number of medical problems that can disrupt sleep such as pain, sleep apnea disorder, restless leg syndrome and endocrine illnesses. There are also medications for particular medical problems that can cause insomnia. Depression and anxiety can also disrupt sleep. If your physician does not believe you are struggling with these illnesses or medication side effects, then one may want to consider working with a talk therapist to learn relaxation skills or other strategies to help relax while going to sleep. Finally, there are a number of medications that can be prescribed to help insomnia.

Difficulty sleeping is a relatively common problem especially for older persons. To counteract sleeplessness, a variety of sleep medications are available.
The first group of medications that can help with sleep are known as benzodiazepines:

• These include such medications as temazepam (Restoril), flurazepam (Dalmane), estazolam (Prosom), triazolam (Halcion), and quazepam (Doral)
• These are drugs which interact with the neurochemical GABA to cause sedation, memory loss, a decrease in anxiety, and they can be muscle relaxants and antiseizure drugs
• These drugs vary in their onset and length of action
• Temazepam, for example, is most effective when it is used to help with sleep onset, whereas flurazepam is most effective in helping someone stay asleep
• These medications tend to lose their effectiveness over time and the associated effects such as memory problems and sedation can carry into the next day.

According to Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada:

• Almost 16% of Canadians over 60 reported taking sleep medication over the past year, of which 85% was prescribed by physicians
•  Sleep medication is higher for women, increases with age, poor health, chronic illness and poor quality sleep, and was especially high for people with a recent major depressive episode
• Prescribed sleep medication increased with age, low income, low education, poor health, chronic illness and residence in the province of Quebec
• Adjusting for health status or insurance covering medication costs made little difference.